"Someone, and up to something," declared Dave to himself. "Hark, now."
He bent his ear keenly. A soft drip-drip sounded just beyond the rail. Then a black hand glistening with water clutched the rail itself.
Slowly, cautiously the body of a dusky native, attired only in swimming garb, came into view. This was the person Dave had detected swimming under water.
Straddling the rail, the intruder crouched, looking all about the deck. Then he lifted both feet over onto the planking.
Dave now noticed that the man carried under one arm quite a bulky package done up in black oilskin.
The intruder glanced sharply at the forecastle. Just abutting it was a box-like section into which all kinds of odds and ends of canvas and ropes were bundled. Its door was half-ajar. Dave saw the stranger glide to this, thrust his package inside, glide back to the rail, slip over it, and drop into the water.
A minute later the ripples in the creek showed where the fellow was making his retreat under water. His head came up to the surface once or twice. Then he arose at a distance down the stream and disappeared among the dense shrubbery lining the creek.
"More mischief," instantly decided Dave Fearless.
Dave made a rush for the forecastle cubby hole. He pulled its door wide open and groped about. His fingers closed about a dripping object there.
"Hard and heavy," said Dave. "Wrapped in the oilskin to protect it. What can it be?"
Dave arose to his feet. Suddenly a thrill passed through his frame.
"Put here for a purpose," he thought. "Can it be an explosive!"
Internally Dave became immensely excited. Coolly, however, though carrying the dubious object as though it were an egg, he proceeded to the ship's rail nearest the shore.
Dave set the object gently on the rail, climbed over, took it up again, and, holding it above his head in one hand, dropped into the water.
The splash, slight as it was, aroused the watch. Two men came hurrying to the rail.
"Hold on, there," challenged one of them.
"It's only me--Dave Fearless," came the retort promptly, "cooling off--a little swim, that's all."
Dave laughed. He liked water, and swam with one hand, came ashore, and went past its fringe of brush to a clearing.
"Now then," said Dave, with a great sigh of relief, at a safe distance from the ship, "burst, if you want to!"